


It's Not Heaven Without You

by GinnyRose



Series: Post-Canon Supernatural Fix-Its Because I'm Not a Coward [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5x20 fix it, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer is Dean Winchester's Parent, Canonical Character Death, Castiel and Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester are Jack Kline's Parents, Castiel deserved better, Dean deserved better, Destiel - Freeform, Fix-It, Fluff, Gay Castiel (Supernatural), Happy Ending, Heaven, How Heaven Could Have Been if the Writers Weren't Cowards, M/M, One-Shot, POV Dean Winchester, This Was Literally all they needed to do, cursing, post series fix it, series finale spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27951737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyRose/pseuds/GinnyRose
Summary: Dean got ganked by some frigging juggalos but heaven isn't all that bad. He's got old friends, cheap beer, and good times waiting for him.And maybe even an angel he never thought he'd see again and a chance at an actual happy ending.Part of a series of drabbles/one-shots but can be read completely on its own.
Relationships: Bobby Singer & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Post-Canon Supernatural Fix-Its Because I'm Not a Coward [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021288
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	It's Not Heaven Without You

Out of all the ways Dean had thought he would go out from, getting impaled by a frigging nail after dispatching a whole troop of freaky looking Juggalos had _not_ been one of them.

Fucking tetanus. Sam had always warned him not getting vaccinated would bite him in the ass, but he bet neither of them thought it would be quite so literal.

Sam.

His baby brother, his Sammy.

Dean had left him behind, had finally gone where his little brother wouldn’t follow – at least for a few good decades if he knew what was good for him. Part of him – a large part, the part that remembered having to sloppily change an overused diaper with too small hands in the back of a car going eighty down some desolate freeway – screamed and raged with the desire to go back, to keep watch over him and make sure no Chuck-damned nails got to him too. But another part, a part that was shamefully even bigger, rejoiced in the quiet he found himself in.

The air was warm here, the sun high in the sky, and all around him was the inviting smell of a midwestern summer.

At least he had made it up high. Dean hadn’t even been sure there still would _be_ a Heaven, with Chuck de-deified and most of the angels snoring away in the Empty, and he’d been even less sure there would be a spot for him in it.

It really did put a perspective on how shitty a God Chuck was, when even his so-called Paradise welcomed in one of his most ardent enemies with open arms.

Granted, maybe this actually was Hell and Rowena had really spiced up the place. Who really knew with witches, anyway?

Whether Heaven or Hell, Dean knew enough about both of them to start walking. The sun was still shining as he walked and no one was trying to spontaneously gut him, leading credence to the idea that this actually was Heaven but there was nothing familiar around him. He didn’t recognize whatever Greatest Hit of his this was and the lack of memory set him on edge.

At least, until he crested one of the rolling hills and a familiar building popped suddenly into view.

Dean’s heart skipped a beat as he took in the Roadhouse in all her grimy, darkened glory. It had been a shithole in its prime and not even Heaven seemed able to wipe away its hole-in-the-wall charm.

But an even more welcome sight was the old man sitting in a half-rusted garden chair, a brown bottle in his hand and an expectant look in his old eyes.

“Took ya long enough, boy. What, you stopped to smell every rose in this place or what?” Bobby, his Bobby, sounded gruff and sarcastic as ever but there was no faking that happy tone lying underneath all the scruff and Dean couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face.

“What memory is this?” He couldn’t help but ask. He had spent a good many of his and Sam’s early hunting days at the Roadhouse but he couldn’t remember a single moment that it had been quite so bright; he couldn’t even remember a single time he had drank with Bobby at the Roadhouse. The old man had always preferred drinking his cheap beer in the privacy of his own house.

“It’s not,” Bobby responded, gruff and cryptic as ever as he popped upon the ice chest next to him – another indication that there was something not quite right about this memory, Ellen would have been out here hollering at anyone stupid enough to bring outside alcohol to her bar – and passed Dean one of the bottles. Dean took the seat next to him, only a little surprised that the rickety thing managed not to collapse under him. He wasn’t fat, no matter what Sam said about his eating habits, but the old chair didn’t look stable enough to handle a mouse, let alone a grown man. But the seat held and the cheap beer was a twist-off so the afterlife could be worse.

Dean had a million questions about wherever the hell this was supposed to be. He was pretty sure he was in Heaven, but it wasn’t any part he had ever seen before and somehow he doubted Chuck had time to come up and revamp the entire place while simultaneously ending worlds and making Dean’s life a personal hell. He settled, after half a moment’s thought, for the most pressing. “Thought you were in Heaven’s lockup?” Was that where this was? Dean hadn’t expected the feathery dicks to be the “rehabilitate with kindness” sort but maybe some free-thinking gentle angel had messed up the jail cells before getting ganked.

Maybe Dean shouldn’t be thinking about free-thinking angels of any sort.

It brought things a little too close to home.

Dean took a swig of his beer to chase away the bad thoughts. It tasted vile, like the first drink he’d ever shared with Bobby that summer his dad had left him and Sammy in Sioux Falls for two weeks when he’d been fifteen. He took another swig all the same, mirroring the man beside him who drained half his beer before responding. “I was.” He answered candidly. “That kid of yours freed me.”

Dean had never twisted around so fast. “ _What_?”

Bobby had a small, amused smirk on his face. “You know who I’m talking about, Dean. Tall gangly golden retriever looking brat, real polite though. He must have gotten that from Sam cause we all know you ain’t got a mannered bone in your whole body.” Bobby was really enjoying himself, Dean was sure, but he seemed to take pity on him because he started explaining properly after taking another swallow of beer. “Jack came up here and changed a lot of things. Tore down all the walls, let people spend their eternity together instead of all alone. Made it a real paradise.”

Pride warred with a strange kind of sadness inside Dean. He had missed Jack, far more than he had let even Sam see, and a large part of him had been angry that the boy had left them. But if this was what he had been doing, tearing down walls that never should have existed and giving people who deserved it an actual happily-ever after, well –

Somehow, they had done good with the kid. Dean had no clue how, what with every fucked up thing that had happened to him, with every fucked up thing _Dean_ had done to him and every messed up idea he had put in the kid’s head, he had turned out better than them all.

“He did all this, huh?” Dean asked, looking out at the softly rolling hills and taking in the bright, sunny day. Jack had always liked the sunshine and Dean was pretty sure the little dots he saw zooming around the bright specks of flowers up on the tops of the hills were bees; Jack had always had a fondness for the little creatures.

Just like –

"Well, Cas helped.” Bobby’s voice was too casual, too light. Dean nearly shattered bottle in his hand as he whipped his head around hard enough to give himself whip lash.

Could you even get injured in Heaven, anymore? Or had Jack taken away all pain in his new paradise?

He couldn’t have because if he had, Dean wouldn’t be hurting at all right now and his heart _ached_ just the same as it had at every mention of that name. Dean’s breath wouldn’t have caught in his chest; he wouldn’t have suddenly felt like someone had walloped him in the stomach.

He hadn’t let himself think about Cas ever since he had carved his name into the makeshift family tree on the bunker table. He had sworn he wouldn’t think about the angel ever since he had pelted up the stairs and let the devil into his home just because he had let himself think that maybe, just maybe, the angel was back.

Cas had gone where Dean could not follow; Dean had known this ever since he had spent the night of Chuck’s defeat tearing through every single book on angels and demons and their afterlife the Bunker had in a drunken haze. Humans could not enter the Empty and no amount of prayers to Jack that night had gotten a response. Dean had buried Cas and Jack both with every stab of his knife into the table that night and had vowed not to think of either again.

He had failed, of course, because Dean was above all things, painfully human, and humans didn’t let go of loved ones that easily.

“Yeah. He visits sometimes, when his celestial duties brings him around our part of town. Jo hasn’t quite forgiven him for still being able to drink her under the table.”

Dean should have latched onto the mention of Jo – he should have asked about her, should have asked if she was in the Roadhouse right behind him, just waiting with a shot of whiskey and a cock-sure grin for him to step through those doors, should have stood up and walked into the Roadhouse to wrap her in a hug and never let her go, her and Ellen and Ash because where else would Ash be but home in the bar – but he found himself frozen, unable to think of anything else but Cas.

Cas was gone; Cas was here. Cas was stuck in eternal sleep in the Empty; Cas was in Heaven, rebuilding the whole place and getting himself roped into drinking parties at the Roadhouse.

Cas, who had said he loved him and then left; Cas who he would never see again. 

Cas, who was an imperfect, infuriating, stubborn, son of a bitch. Cas, who was compassionate, fierce, lovely, _divine_.

Cas, who for some reason had found his true happiness in loving Dean and who had died without knowing that Dean could _never_ be truly happy without him by his side.

Cas, who was lost to him forever.

Cas, who might only be a single prayer away.

“I’m sure he’ll be around soon.” Bobby’s voice was soft now, far away and murky inside all of Dean’s thunderous thoughts. “He’s never been able to stay away from you long,” there was something knowing, too knowing, in Bobby’s voice and had Dean been in the right mind he might have panicked because the number one rule Dean had about being in love with another man was to never let anyone know and if Bobby suspected, that meant Sam did too but Dean’s mind was too swamped with the thought of _Cas’s here, Cas is alive, I can see Cas again_ to fully realize anything else.

He was standing without even realizing, his heart pounding hard to the rhythm of an angel’s name.

“Oh, get on with it and go find your angel, you idjit. The pining’s getting older than either of us ever got to be.” Bobby’s voice was brusque, borderline rude, but Dean barely registered the words and he didn’t even manage a goodbye as he all but tore away from the Roadhouse.

Later, when he came back and gave everyone – his mom and Bobby and Ellen and Joe and Ash and Charlie and Kevin and Pamela and all the others they’d lost along the way – a proper hello, he’d be mortified to learn they had all been watching out the window eagerly, waiting for the moment Bobby told him about Castiel and taking bets on how’d he react. But for now, the promise of Cas, of seeing him again, of being with him again, was too great for him to think of anything else.

He’d just made it over the hill – he wasn’t even sure if it was the same one he’d crossed over on his way to the Roadhouse or a different one – and onto a bridge overlooking a softly gushing river when he’d heard it.

It had been so long – too long really – since he’d heard the sound of wings softly beating but he’d recognize that presence anywhere, at any time.

He would deny it with every breath of his afterlife later, but there were already tears forming in his eyes when he heard that raspy, deep voice murmur “Hello, Dean,” once more.

And he finally, truly, completely allowed himself to believe this really was Heaven.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
